Kei Tsukishima
is a first year at Karasuno High School; he is a middle blocker in the Karasuno High Volleyball Club and is the younger brother of Akiteru Tsukishima. Appearance Tsukishima is very tall and has an average build for a volleyball player. Despite being a first year, he is the tallest player in Karasuno High, standing at 188.3 cm. He has short blond hair, thin eyebrows and golden brown eyes. He is often seen with a frown or a condescending smirk on his face. After joining the Karasuno volleyball team, Tsukishima wears the standard Karasuno volleyball uniform (black, orange, and white uniform with the number 11 on the back) during games. In addition, Tsukishima wears knee pads, and white volleyball shoes with green details. He is also the only player on the Karasuno team who wears glasses. Since Chapter 109, Tsukishima started wearing prescription sports glasses (a gift from his older brother, Akiteru) in the matches. Outside of matches and practice, Tsukishima wears a black gakuran, the Karasuno male uniform, and white headphones around his neck. Personality Tsukishima is very blunt and will sometimes rile his teammates up (most notably being Hinata, Kageyama, Nishinoya, and Tanaka). He finds a "pure and straightforward" attitude "annoying" due to past experiences, where he watched his older brother suffer for those exact traits. While he originally didn't want to put in much effort to volleyball because he felt that it wouldn't get him anywhere, Tsukishima has since begun to apply his clever blocking to matches and has become Karasuno's blocking playmaker, thanks to encouragement he received from various people at the Tokyo training camp,particularly Yamaguchi and Bokuto. The second years think of him as someone with a warped personality, and Hinata felt like he was "wasting his talent" as he did not take full advantage of his height until he found his passion for volleyball. Statistics Tsukishima is shown to be proficient at blocking. It has been said by Kenma that he was a calm and collected blocker who thoroughly analyses his actions, quite contrary to Hinata's behavior. He's also been known to throw out some feints to surprise and off-balance his opponents. Tokyo Expedition Arc While at first he shows little passion or interest in improving his blocking, he comes to request further advice from Coach Ukai, who redirected him to Tetsurō Kuroo, whom is known to be a veteran in blocking. He was given blocking advice by Kuroo and Bokuto and practiced with them throughout the summer. As a result of his training, by putting power into the very tips of his fingers and extending his hands out in front of him instead of above him, he learned to be exceptional at doing a "kill block." In addition to matching opponents with higher height and power, he learned to match the timing of his opponents and back them to a corner with a "conclusive" block. According to Akiteru, Kei isn't the sort of player who moves on instinct. He doesn't trust in his own strength, nor in the senses he's honed. He is so dispassionate that it borders on morosity. The only thing he trusts is the "information" in front of him. Later during their match with Shiratorizawa, it's shown that Tsukishima is truly a man that can "read block." It is also shown that Tsukishima is starting to really care about winning the game against Shitorizawa when his right hand gets injured while blocking one of Ushijima's spikes. He shows annoyance that he has to be switched out at such a crucial moment in the game, telling Hinata to buy him some time while he is gone. Hinata responds saying that they will be at nationals by the time he returns. The fact that he entrusted Hinata shows how much better their relationship has grown, it is not perfect but certainly better than in the beginning. Trivia *Favorite Food: strawberry shortcake. *Current Concern: Upon entering high school, he once again has to put up with various people asking how to read the character for his first nameThe character for his name (蛍) can be read as Kei, but is more commonly read as Hotaru rather than Kei. They both mean 'firefly' though. *His star sign is Libra. *He is always seen with his Sony (Somy in anime) headphones around his neck whenever he's not practicing or playing. *Tsukishima appears to be good at studying as he belongs to Class 1-4, known to be a college preparatory class. *His birthday falls upon the day of the Harvest Moon–which is when the Mid-Autumn Festival, also known as the Moon Festival, on the Chinese calendar is celebrated in September 2015https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-Autumn_Festival. Coincidentally, the first character in his name means "moon". In addition, Tsukishima was often seen with a crescent moon symbol on the back of his hoodies and jackets as a child. *He keeps toy dinosaurs on a shelf above his desk. Whether he actually likes dinosaurs or not is unknown, but it can be assumed that he does, as is demonstrated in a Let's! Haikyuu!? chapterhttp://imadorimidori.tumblr.com/post/121320080913/a-lets-haikyuu-chapter-that-i-tried-to. *Tsukishima is often referred to as the moon while Hinata is the sun due to their surnames and opposing personalities. *In a poll conducted by Charapedia, a Japanese anime and manga character database, that asked which anime characters would they choose as the basis for their children's name, Tsukishima came in 9th with 98 votes among female respondentshttp://www.charapedia.jp/research/0076/3/. *In Haikyū!!: One Shot, Tsukishima was actually as a second year when Hinata and Kageyama were first years. *Furudate picked Tsukishima's name because “His last name has ‘moon’ (月) to contrast Hinata’s ‘sun’ (日). But I named him ‘firefly’ (蛍) because he can emit light on his own.”Haikyū!! Guidebook *'Nomenclature': **Kei (蛍) - Firefly **Tsukishima (月島) - Moon Island References }} Category:Characters Category:Male Characters Category:Karasuno High Volleyball Club Category:Middle Blockers Category:1st Year